Jannette L. Dates PH.D.

As dean of Howard University’s School of Communications, Jannette L. Dates, Ph.D., is charged with preparing a next generation of communicators to succeed in a technology-driven world. Dates joined Howard in 1981 as a faculty member in the Department of Radio, Television and Film. She became acting dean of the School of Communications in 1993 and dean in 1996, a role she took on with a mission to: “Send out stellar students who can compete with anyone from any other institution and can hold their own.”

“I never had a job that I wouldn’t go back to in a minute,” says Dates, who began her career in education in the Baltimore City Public School System in 1958. She became a live-television demonstration teacher for the school system and subsequently an assistant professor at Morgan State University. During her tenure at Morgan State, she was a producer, writer and anchor for North Star, a weekly television series featuring local and national African-American entertainment and sports personalities. That experience laid the foundation for her role as a communications educator and commentator. She has been a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, discussing the images of African-Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the mass media. She co-edited the book Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media; wrote chapters for several other books and authored 20 peer-reviewed articles and general publication articles.

Dates earned her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland at College Park, a master’s in education at the Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s in education at Coppin State College. She holds a certificate from Harvard University’s Management Development Program and is a past fellow of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. She was once named “Woman of the Year” by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.